Mendocino for the soul

Leaving Tommy the Tripper to the winds of chance, we got back in Ronda, our little red rental car, and headed over beautiful Highway 20 towards Mendocino. We still had some road munchies from the Ashland Food Co-op (coconut chocolate goji berry squares, or some such awesomeness) but as we passed Clearlake I had to stop at The Grub Shack, whose red lettering said “Country boy American food” and there was a gigantic barbecue on the deck cooking the largest rack of beef short-ribs I’ve ever seen.
I sat and ate the most delicious hamburger I’ve had in years, listening to disappointed country lads being told the ribs smoking outside wouldn’t be ready for another few hours. Sorry K, but I’ve never been happier to be a meat-eater. Gotta go back someday for the ribs.

Driving through redwoods to the Mendocino Coast felt like entering my religion's cathedral after years of pilgrimage in heathen lands. Those trees. I don’t mean to be polemic or offensive, but I don’t understand how anyone can sit in a normal church if a forest is nearby. When you look at those giants, how can you think God lives in a little human-built box? In a world with natural beauty like that, how can anyone think The Divine gives a beautiful little rat’s ass about what hat you wear, how you pray, or who you love?


We were staying in another airbnb property, this time a palace of light wood, tall windows, and forest light. Our room was on the second floor, with high ceilings, and waking up in the morning felt like we’d slept in the world’s most comfortable treehouse.

The weather this whole trip has been perfect, sunny on walking days and raining in the forest, and our first night in Mendo we sat in the outdoor hot tub, 104 degrees F, listening to the light rain in the redwoods and feeling it dancing in exuberantly cool opposition on our faces. Tangible Beauty. Ineffably Holy. (Not a smidgeon of dogma in sight.)

We ate good food again, saw the small-town hippies walking their dreadlocks, dogs, and dogs’ dreadlocks, and strolled about the epic Mendocino Headlands on a blustery day when waves exploded into the air around us and an older couple gifted us with smiles and “you guys remind us of ourselves, 40 years ago.” The woman walked carefully with a cane, he remained close by her side out of love not obligation, and I loved them immediately.

We went for a walk in Van Damme State Park, strolling in bliss beside a clear stream, redwood drips blessing us with every step, smiling effortlessly and sincerely at any passing travelers and ferns. I thought the damp little walkers were fire bellied salamanders, but now I reckon they were Taricha granulosa granulosa, Rough-skinned Newts.

Leaving the park we crossed the street to stare in awe at the Pacific, leaping off the craggy rocks of the Northern California Coast.


I could go on for far longer than you want to read, so suffice to say, I’ve seen a lot of amazing places (I‘m looking at you Sahara, Himalaya, Pyrenees, Scottish Highlands, Caribbean…), and nothing beats the Pacific Northwest. Being there feels like home base for the soul.

Leaving was hard, especially since I was unable to see my favorite 8 and 5 year olds in the world, who live in the area, but the fact that we were headed down to the family and friends of the San Francisco Bay Area put a glowing goal over the horizon to reach for.

I love that feeling.

Shasta to Redding Trip...

After one last Portland brunch with my brother it was a beautiful few hour drive down to the ghost town of Mount Shasta after ski season ends but before hike/lake season begins. We stayed in a little cabin some guy has built in his backyard, and was clearly decorated by a single heterosexual male who spends more time camping than shopping. That is, it looked fine to me./I liked it.

We found an organic, vegan, local, gluten-free, homemade, artisan, raw, carbon-neutral, ayurvedic, probiotic, non-gmo, non-hfcs, non-pgh (I'm just making up acronyms now) cafe, where we enjoyed a tasty bowl of soup and a sandwich while watching the sedate procession of parka-clad and dreadlocked individuals drifting through to the open mic in the back room where an earnest young man was strumming an acoustic guitar and telling us about love. It was awesome. They had checkers too.

The next morning was light sticky snow, and since, given the chance, our economy-class rental car would slide like a hockey puck, we left early to drive down to Mendocino, munching on food bought the day before at the incredible Ashland Food Co-op.

Passing through Redding, I decided on a whim to pull over and see the Sundial Bridge. We found it, saw it, and halfway through crossing it heard screams of "hey!!! HEY!!!" coming out of the woods. The screams were followed by a young male, hands wrapped in an extra wool parka-thing. As he saw us and got closer he remembered what he meant was "HELP!!!" He stumbled up to us.

"I don't understand myself and I need to. I need to understand you. I don't understand you because I don't understand death!"

I stepped in front of K, eyes on his hand, hidden in his parka.

"I need the world to know, because everything is within me, and you need to understand, and I need to be free, because what I have realized..."

I've narrowed my guesses to two: 1: he has a gun in there and is about to shoot me. 2: he cut off most/all of one/both of his hand(s).

"and I cannot be free until I realize my potential, because I have been carrying too much weight!"

The hands drop, the parka drops to the ground, carrying some brightly colored spiritual self-help book with it, his hands...reach out for me, clean and weapon-free.

"Can I hug you? I need to hug you to activate my peanut butter. Because I have been denying protein my whole life!"

(Me) "Uh, not right now, thanks."

"I am Toltec. Do you know what that is?"

(Me) "Uh, yeah, it's an indigenous tribe from Mexico."

(solemnly) "Yes. The Toltec are where all humanity comes from. And it is where marijuana comes from. Do you smoke marijuana?"

"uh...not much?"

"Good. (Again, very solemnly) We should not smoke marijuana...

...we should eat it."

I can't remember everywhere the discussion went, although I remember his heartfelt conviction that he need to learn all the languages of the world in order to communicate with everyone, his certainty that he should start with Latin, and his genuine disappointment when we told him we couldn't teach him Latin.

As entertaining as it is now, he was in a fragile place, and the message to remember is: if you are going to take a psychotropic journey, take a guide. This kid should have had someone with him, because he was picking up and mirroring whatever minute signals we gave him.

So I tried to be reassuring and appreciative, and invited him to cross a bridge with us. We walked back across the Sundial Bridge.

"I know my path now, I must come with you."

"No my friend, our path today takes us many miles, and you have more to learn here. We met you for a reason, and we have accomplished it, now our paths must part."

"I need to come with you, I am frightened."

My heart was breaking for this poor wide-eyed kid, but I wasn't about to bring him 250 miles to the coast.

"You are okay, you are safe here my friend." His breathing slowed. "There, see that cafe there? That is where you must go now."

"Yes, I must go there now, there I will find friends."

God I hope he found friends there. If whatever bored teenager who was dishing up coffee that morning treated him badly... I wish that kid well. And remember, if you are going on the dream path, get a guide.

Portland

Thank you Portland. Better yet: thank you Portlanders.

It’s been a good week in the City of Roses. Enough good food to overwhelm a poor traveler’s palette, with descriptions that range from enticing to somewhat ridiculous. I keep meaning to copy some down for you, but once the plate arrives such thoughts are simmered into a balsamic reduction that leaves no aftertaste. I fear I would utterly fail a spelling test generated from these esoteric epicurean soliloquies.

But as delightful as it was to reacquaint myself with my dear old friend Brunch, it was the reunions with family and friends that lifted the week to the sublime.

As the train from Seattle slid into Portland and my reunion with my brother, I slid into giddiness. K tolerated/enjoyed my tour guide narration of Portland (non)landmarks in a variety of accents as my spirits bubbled over. My brother met us at the station and we hadn’t made it out the doors yet when the obscure movie references and decades-old inside jokes began. (K thanks you for your condolences.)

We went to the forest. My god, it had been too long. Such power and Beauty in thick forest floors, damp bark and dripping leaves. Green green GREEN!!! We walked a path cut into granite cliffside beside godly waterfalls, felt snow on our faces, saw a deer spotting us from the green abyss, and tried to stare at the Columbia River Gorge but were overwhelmed and insignificant.

We stayed with time-honored friends and their 9 month old addition to the family, saw further friends, from long ago, medium ago, and recent, all of whom are cause for gratitude. Today held a famous Croquet Social, yesterday moved K out of her comfort zone in an unprecedented manner that she dealt with like a champ, and the day before we stood in a quintessential Portland bar/venue watching improv rock & roll make horrible yet enjoyable noise.

This trip is characterized by insufficient time at every stage (see: Seattle) and though Portland is to be the longest, the week felt more like a day. At the end of it we were shocked and dismayed to find that we were not living there from now on, as we had tried to convince ourselves, nor even staying another month, as mere decency demanded. Nearly unacceptable.

I love traveling, and am addicted to the lure of new places and the sense of transition, but oh-me-oh-my, the lure of settling down with family and friends can be strong.  We’re a rather schizophrenic species, with our needs for isolation and socialization, noise and silence, stimulation and tranquility, and in that twist and pull I can find Beauty, but leaving Portland, leaving my Portlanders that is, was hard.

Sing a sea shanty with me

Onboard the ferry from Seattle to Victoria last Thursday was a little blond boy, eight or nine years old, running up and down the aisles, swinging from the armrests and chasing his brother.

About twenty years ago my family took a summer vacation to Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver Island. I was the little blond boy, running up and down the aisles... I wonder what the me of then would have thought of the me of now. Probably just another grown-up to avoid disturbing?

Those thoughts made me smile as we sailed across birdbath-calm seas on the way up to Canada. Two excellent days later we were returning, and the birdbath was gone.

The northern part of the trip goes through the Straight of Juan de Fuca, which is open at the west end to the Pacific Ocean, and Saturday night the ocean rollers were taking advantage. The Clipper is an impressive ship, a catamaran that holds 30 knots the whole way, but it started feeling smaller and smaller as the waves got bigger and bigger.

I enjoyed the flying lift in the belly at first, watching as the faces around us on the boat got tighter and tighter, greener and greener. You could see people's bodies floating up in the air as the boat dropped into each trough between waves. The cabin crew came around with little ginger candies to calm stomachs, and reassuring smiles to calm fears.

Smiles and laughs started getting fewer as the troughs deepened, and passengers started staggering to the stern to find the restrooms. The sets got stronger, and things started falling off tables before they were quickly packed away.

We weren't sure if K gets motion sick, but about the time she thought it prudent to go linger in the vomitorium vicinity the young lass of the cabin crew stopped smiling. I watched her go over and secure the external door, brow wrinkled.

The troughs were deep enough that you could hear and feel the slap of the hull coming down out of the air to contact the waves. A second sailor (this one I swear looking like Popeye, with broad tattooed forearms) came and peered out the windows and at the horizon, looking far less than reassuring before moving back to the stern, not making eye contact with anyone.

The horizon leaped out of sight below the window, faster than it had yet, the cabin girl grabbed two handles, bent her knees and said "shit!" before we came slamming down, spray lifting over the bow and smashing along the front view windows.

I heard a groan that would have been more amusing if I was sure it hadn't come from me.

The Straight of Juan de Fuca seemed to last a looong time, but we finally made it through, and the troughs were reduced to simply stomach-dropping levels, but everyone's faces stayed a little tight until we docked in Seattle.

A good friend picked us up at the pier and I spent the rest of the evening enjoying good company and being on solid ground.

A form of The Good Life, eh.

Still a tad jet-laggy, we're living the good life today in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

We're staying in another airbnb place, this time the apartment of an excellent-sounding couple who is unfortunately in India at the moment, but their place is awesome, and superbly close to downtown. We slept in, wandered over to a brunch place for homemade granola and free-run egg scramble. Stopped by a quirky grocery store (where we continued finding out which products K has never heard of and I've forgotten, triscuits, butterfinger, jack cheese), then the rest of the day moving between the multiple vintage stores (I fell fully asleep in one of them) and the bizarrely common coffeeshops where I am exploring the range of chai lattes.

Given the modest population of Victoria and the Saanich Peninsula it sits on, I do not understand how the concise downtown area supports that kind of coffeeshop density. I don't think there is a single block in town that doesn't have at least 1.7 coffeeshops on it, of which only a few are Starbucks.

It's a rule-breaking sort of place I guess, since there are at least four bead shops and a half dozen other craft stores as well. All in all, it's my kinda town; the Religion section of the magazine rack featured monthlies called, among others: Magical Times, Faerie, and (my personal favorite) Mermaids.

With this kind of indulgent strolling, maybe it's no surprise we were asked for directions; I guess we just look comfortable.

Saturday morning stroll to the water tomorrow, then back to Seattle on the evening ferry before heading down to Portland.

Dinnertime in Seattle

We left the famous and filthy streets of New York for the relatively spotless and anonymous byways of Seattle, and both of us were quickly enamored of The Emerald City. (I haven't felt camera-inclined so far this trip, but here's the New York subway and one reason we liked Seattle: the sticky pecan bun in the bakery cafe where we had breakfast.)

In lieu of a normal hotel I booked us a place on airbnb.com, where people with extra rooms/apartments can list them to travelers, setting their own prices and rules; it’s halfway between hotels.com and couch surfing.com. (I am going to list that comment on comparisons.com.)

We were staying in “contemporary artist loft downtown” which turned out to be in a building otherwise occupied by artists' work-studios, and I had kept it a surprise for K. When I stopped at a random building as we walked through the International District, K’s confusion was delightful. “Honey, that’s not a hotel…”

We were curious about the artists who have studios there, and as we left for dinner last night met one of them in a quick chat as we left the building together. We stepped into the mom & pop sushi place downstairs saying “I would have liked to talk to him more.” That’s the awesome thing about services like this, meeting normal (ie not working in tourism) people when you travel.

I read in the paper that the guy who wrote “It’s a Small World After All” died the other day, and they said that song is the most-played tune on Earth…not sure I believe that…but either way, it IS a small world, and a few minutes later the artist guy came into the restaurant and sat at the table next to ours. He was shortly joined by his co-renter (they are both tremendously talented comics illustrators) and we had an impromptu sushi dinner party for 4.

I love traveling.

Good (what time zone am I in?) from New York.

Wow, a little bit of jet lag and lots of miles walked combine to leave me with few words tonight, oh and that early morning flight tomorrow, but I feel like I should put something up on here while in New York (and just in case anyone else got that last post backwards and thought it was a suicide note. It was not. Quite the opposite.)

New York. Um. We've enjoyed our couple days here, wandering around familiar places we've never been before. The hotel I found on sale is not nearly as fancy-shmancy outside as it looked on the site, but that's actually a good thing. The hotel in Dusseldorf was in one of those odd hotel/business park areas that are so artificial and isolated, whereas here we are just on some random backstreet in Brooklyn.

Maybe not an average street though, given that we're on the edge of Williamsburg, which is apparently the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. Lots and lots of black clothes, forelocks, and eyes that won't look at you. It reminds me of Antwerp, but dirtier. Much dirtier.

Yesterday wandered through Brooklyn, Park Slope, Prospect Park, over to Manhattan to meander through Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, East Village. On the street in that last one a hobo with lunatic eyes and crust on his sleeve zeroed in on K and before I could warn her, deliberately brushed that scuzzy sleeve against her, but it provided perfect karma because a second later we had the perfect celebrity spotting.

If K hadn't have said something I wouldn't have recognized Mathias Schoenaerts, arguably the top celebrity in Belgium right now (after his Oscar nomination this year). If we were going to see a celebrity, I really couldn't think of a better one to see in America than the top Belgian. Love it. We all looked at each other, took a couple more steps, then stopped and slyly looked back to see if the other one was looking, half-smiled when they were, and went on our way.

Okay, early flight tomorrow. Good night.

Looking back to tomorrow.

I just wrote a letter. An honest to goodness, paper letter. How old fashioned. But it seems like that type of letter needs to be on paper, tangible, manifest. In it I told everyone who's still here how much I love them. The practical considerations were all taken care of yesterday.

Now I'm sitting here, on this bench, this beautiful view, and I can tell all the ones who are already gone how much I love them too. I've been so lucky in this life, so many good long years, the places seen and scenes placed in my memory. A very, very good life. Unbelievably lucky.
Getting cold.
My fingers are numb. These fingers have felt so much, so many things, but now they're numb, and they've felt their last. Thank you fingers.
There are my feet down there, gone to all my senses but sight, if I wanted to lean and look. They've taken so many steps, taken me so many wonderful places. Rest now feet.
It's getting colder now.
The religions of the world never interested me much, beyond their value as psycological indicators and social currents made manifest, but I like to think I'm a spiritual person. I believe after one dies their spirit can go back and revisit whatever parts of their life just lived they want to. Like a personal library, they can ride along behind the eyes, in the fingers, above the feet, through the good times, the bad, whatever the spirit wills, they've earned the privilege.

I know I have good times to go back and revisit.
Then when the spirit has had enough of those memories it can choose, to go back and be born again, another try, or it can embrace oblivion, maybe be recycled into another soul.
I don't feel cold any more.
I'll go back to a good time, an exciting time. I'll go back to March 2, 2012. I was leaving Belgium after a very good year and a half there, setting out for another adventure. First a train to a hotel in a new city, a nervous night there, then a plane across the sea, then...
Yes, I think I'll go back and relive that, because I know I made the most of the ineffable gift that is life during that time.
Goodbye. Thank you. Hello.